About Chitra Ganesh

Exuberant and challenging, full of sex, abjection, beauty, and dazzling, intricate detail, Chitra Ganesh’s wide-ranging works are focused on the marginalized and excluded figures and narratives in art, history, and literature. Accordingly, and unsurprisingly, women—pin-ups, mothers, priestesses, witches, heroines, warriors, and goddesses—are the protagonists of her works, which include mixed-media drawings, digital collages, photographs, paintings, and installations. With a critical framework shaped by “social theory and contemporary literature from around the world,” as she describes, Ganesh draws influence broadly, borrowing images and themes from diverse sources including Hindu, Greek, and Buddhist mythology, Bollywood posters, and 19th-century European fairy tales. In her works, she presents alternative narratives, in which women possess a dangerous sexuality and are invested with strength and power.